“You start on the left, and I’ll take the right?” Teddy offered. Beatrice nodded.
She made her way methodically along the crowd, pausing to shake hands whenever she could, smiling at the phone screens that were thrust in her face. People threw flowers as she passed; Beatrice bent down to accept one of them, a handful of simple garden daisies from a little girl. “She looked at me!” more than one person cried out, elbowing a friend. Everyone seemed desperate to catch her gaze, to brush her coat, to feel in some way that they had claimed a piece of her. To her right, Beatrice saw Teddy graciously accepting congratulations, hugging people over the barrier. He really was a natural at this.
It wasn’t until later, after Teddy had finally headed home and Beatrice started up the stairs to her room, that she looked out a window and caught sight of Connor.
He was out in the Marble Courtyard: a lonely, solitary figure holding a cigarette in one hand.
She had to force herself not to break into a run as she headed through the first-floor reception rooms and outside. Connor tensed, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge her arrival.
There were a million things Beatrice wanted to say: that she was sorry and that she loved him and could he ever forgive her. All she blurted out was “I didn’t realize you smoked.”
“In extreme situations only,” he said tersely, and turned away.
Beatrice instinctively reached for him, to pull him back—then caught herself, lowering her arm slowly to her side. “Please. Will you take a walk with me?”
She needed to talk to him in private, and had no idea where else they could go. The palace would be swarming with people right now: chamberlains and chambermaids, courtiers and tourists and ministers of state. The gardens were only open to group tours during the summer months. It was January, so everything looked drab and dead, but at least they could talk without fear of being overheard.
Connor tossed his cigarette onto the black and white marble slabs, worn down from centuries of foot traffic. He ground it beneath his heel, daring Beatrice to remark upon it, but she was silent. “Okay,” he conceded.
They started down the gravel path through the center of the gardens. Gray skies arced overhead, mirroring the gray waters of the Potomac in the distance. The air had a bite to it.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Beatrice’s words fell sharply into the silence. “I wanted to, so many times, but …”
“You proposed to him, Beatrice. How do you think I felt, watching you do an engagement interview, and with someone like him?”
“Teddy is actually a nice person,” she couldn’t help saying, which only made things worse.
“Oh, so now you’re defending him?”
The winter light filtered through the bare branches overhead, falling on the sculptures that lined the paths. The fountains were all empty, to keep them from icing over. They looked bare and lonely without their sparkling jets of water.
“This is because of your dad, isn’t it?” Connor asked. “Because he’s sick?”
Beatrice gave a miserable nod, unsurprised that he’d figured it out. “He wants me to get married before he dies. I think it will give him peace of mind, to know that he’s leaving the country in safe hands.”
“He will be leaving the country in safe hands, with you. There’s no one smarter or more capable.”
“I think he wants to ensure the succession,” she clarified, her voice bleak. “Make sure things are set up for the next generation of Washingtons.”
At the mention of children, Connor halted his steps. For a moment Beatrice thought he was going to storm off, turn away from her and never look back.
Instead he fell to one knee before her.
Time went momentarily still. In some dazed part of her mind Beatrice remembered Teddy, kneeling stiffly at her feet as he swore to be her liege man. This felt utterly different.
Even kneeling, Connor looked like a warrior, every line of his body radiating a tensed power and strength.
“It kills me that I don’t have more to offer you,” he said roughly. “I have no lands, no fortune, no title. All I can give you is my honor, and my heart. Which already belongs to you.”
She would have fallen in love with him right then, if she didn’t already love him so fiercely that every cell of her body burned with it.
“I love you, Bee. I’ve loved you for so long I’ve forgotten what it felt like not to love you.”
“I love you, too.” Her eyes stung with tears.
“I get that you have to marry someone before your dad dies. But you can’t marry Teddy Eaton.”
She watched as he fumbled in his jacket for something—had he bought a ring? she thought wildly—but what he pulled out instead was a black Sharpie.
Still kneeling before her, he slid the diamond engagement ring off Beatrice’s finger and tucked it in the pocket of her jacket. Using the Sharpie, he traced a thin loop around the skin of Beatrice’s finger, where her ring had been.
“I’m sorry it isn’t a real ring, but I’m improvising here.” There was a nervous catch to Connor’s voice that Beatrice hadn’t heard before. But when he looked up and spoke his next words, his face glowed with a fierce, fervent hope.
“Marry me.”
In that instant, Beatrice forgot who she was—the name she had been born to, the mantle of responsibility she would soon wear. She forgot her titles and her history and the promises she had made. She thought only of the young man who knelt before her, and the fact that every last fiber of her being was screaming her answer at her—yes yes yes.